school, I saw how easy it was to lead/control people with no critical thinking skills. You cannot control a popuLation that can think/reason.

Over these long decades, I have watched the growing attacks on reason, on learning, on education itself. This is deliberate, this is long-term planning. Frankly, it scares me. With the coronation of the moron in chief, these ignorant yahoos have crawled out from their caves and rocks, proudly displaying their ignorance, their hatred, their utter contempt for rational, civilized society. And their numbers seem to be growing faster than the virus can kill them off.

I think about Mao's "re-education" policies, and "Fahrenheit 451"., and the Inquisition, and The Burning Times, and the near-genocide of the Indigenous peoples by the European invaders. Some days, I despair for humanity.

insane creature currently soiling OUR House what amounted to several billion dollars worth of free air time. You spent hours showing empty podiums, with endless chatter. You spent so much time covering his insanity, his lies and hysteria, that one could be forgiven for not knowing that there was another candidate in the race. And we won't even talk at this point about your disgusting handling of the "debates" (the "moderating" was pathetically sycophantic).

You are doing the same thing right now. You KNOW that his daily ego-massaging "briefings are nothing BUT campaign rallies. Yrt, you are treating them as though they were legitimate news, giving him hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of free campaign air time. Stop it. Just stop feeding his insatiable ego, his narcissism, his lies and hatred. Stop it. Even having a real-time fact-checker will not solve the problem. Just STOP IT!!!

The Rise of the Valkyries In the alt-right, women are the future, and the problem

A month after Donald Trump took office, an activist named Lana Lokteff delivered a speech calling on women to join the political resistance. “Be loud,” Lokteff said in a crisp, assertive voice. “Our enemies have become so arrogant that they count on our silence.” Lokteff, who is in her late thirties, addressed an audience of a few hundred people seated in a room with beige walls, drab lighting, and dark-red curtains. The location, a building in the historic Södermalm neighborhood of Stockholm, Sweden, had been secured only the previous night, after several other venues had refused to host the event, billed as an “ideas” conference. Lokteff wore a white blouse and a crocheted black shawl over her trim figure, with a microphone headset fitted over her long blond hair. In addition to the attendees seated before her, she spoke to viewers watching a livestream. “When women get involved,” she declared, “a movement becomes a serious threat.”

Since Trump’s election in November, that same idea had inspired more than 4,000 women to contact EMILY’s List, an organization that backs female pro-choice candidates across the United States, about running for office. It had compelled women to organize a series of marches that brought millions of anti-Trump protesters into streets around the world.

. . . .

The alt-right is widely considered a movement of young white men, and Lokteff was trying to rally women to the cause. “It was women that got Trump elected,” she said. “And, I guess, to be really edgy, it was women that got Hitler elected.”1 The crowd applauded and cheered. (NOTE:1 Adolf Hitler lost a presidential race, but the Nazis earned enough votes in a parliamentary election in 1932 to become the dominant party in the Reichstag. Hitler was appointed Germany’s chancellor the following year.)

Lokteff was the conference’s only female speaker — perhaps because the alt-right has certain ideas about how women should behave. Another presenter, Matt Forney, a fleshy, goateed blogger in his twenties, once wrote a screed called “The Case Against Female Self-esteem.” In his Stockholm speech, Forney bemoaned social norms telling white men that “your natural masculine instincts, your natural desires to bed and wed women, make you an oppressive misogynist.” Paul Ramsey, who appeared at the event to decry a purported scourge of left-wing violence in America, is better known to his more than 38,000 Twitter followers as RAMZPAUL. Middle-aged with black, thick-rimmed glasses, he doesn’t embrace the alt-right label, but his views align with those of many in the movement: He thinks women shouldn’t vote, and has called gender equality “the mother of all delusions.” Other soldiers in the alt-right’s fractious army regularly insult women on digital platforms such as Twitter, 4chan, and Reddit. The man who claims to have coined the term “alt-right,” Richard Spencer, has said that women shouldn’t make foreign policy because their “vindictiveness knows no bounds.” Andrew Anglin, who runs a neo-Nazi website called the Daily Stormer, once criticized as a traitor any white woman who has mixed-race children. “It’s OUR WOMB,” he wrote. “It belongs to the males in her society.”

The other day, I went into a favourite local boutique just to say hi. A woman was standing at the counter, berating the very young clerk behind the counter. Why? Because, in the window display, was a roll of toilet paper with the orange madman's image on it. The woman was furious. Tha't disrespectful, he's our president. I just came from a meeting learning all about how wonderful he is. He is the president of all of us. Get that thing out of the window. He deserves respect."

Well, we all know what a quiet, gentle, non-confrontational soul I am. . . .

I said, "did you say that every time someone disrespected President Obama? If not, you have no moral ground to stand on" She sputtered, and I repeated the question. She finally said, "I never said anything against him". I replied, "but did you stop, or criticize, those who did?" She did not answer, so I said, "you are answering my question by your silence. So, you are a blatant hypocrite, and, again, you have no moral standing. Now leave the clerk alone"

This very tall, very angry woman, stormed past me to leave. I HATE when people try to bully staff. And, incidentally, the owner of this shop is a very strong progressive.

We should view all the stories about Russia and Trump as part of a whole. To facilitate that, I made an outline of the (1) evidence and (2) people/businesses linking Trump to Russia. Almost all this information comes from mainstream media sites. Almost every sentence is cited.

Extensive Russian Business Connections: Even before the 2000’s, Trump rented posh apartments to Russians mobsters. [TAI]. But Trump’s Russian connections were limited until he became a bad credit risk. [FT]. From 2004 to 2009, two Trump businesses entered bankruptcy and he was unable to pay off a $40 million bank loan. [Newsweek]. As banks stopped lending to Trump, he was forced to seek capital from billionaire kleptocrats and oligarchs in the former Soviet Union and Russia. [TAI]. These billionaires were eager investors in the Trump Organization, and as Trump’s son asserted in 2008, “a lot of money [was] pouring in from Russia.” [CNN]. Recently, Reuters estimated that Russians have purchased, at the very least, $98 million worth of lots in Trump Towers in Florida alone. In addition, a one Russian oligarch bought a Trump mansion for $95 million in 2008. [FT]. Trump’s business with some of these oligarchs and kleptocrats continued until he ran for president. [see e.g. WaPo (2013 Moscow Beauty Pageant); NYT (Moscow Tower plan for 2015)].
During the Campaign: Putin directed Russian intelligence to help the Trump campaign by hacking Democrats’ emails, leaking these emails via WikiLeaks, and flooding social media with anti-Hillary propaganda. [NYT]. Such influence by a foreign power was unprecedented in a US presidential election. [Reuters]. Perhaps coincidentally, Trump’s campaign regularly communicated with Russian officials and, quite likely, senior Russian intelligence officials. [NYT; CNN]. Moreover, campaign members had suspicious connections with organizations tied to Russia. For example: (1) during the campaign, Roger Stone served as a “back-channel” to WikiLeaks and a Twitter account run likely run by Russian intelligence agencies, [Guardian(WikiLeaks); [WashTimes(Guccifer)]; (2) in 2015, Michael Flynn was paid at least $68,000 by Russian entities, including over $45,000 by RT and $11,250 by a Russian cybersecurity firm, [WaPo]; (3) in October 2016, Trump Jr. was paid at least $50,000 for attending private discussions hosted by a pro-Putin Syrian think tank, [WSJ]; and (4) years earlier, Manafort was paid 12 million dollars in off-the-books cash in exchange for working for a pro-Putin Ukrainian party, [NYT]. Also, during the campaign, a former British spy sent the FBI a dossier claiming Trump colluded with Russia, which allegedly had bribed and blackmailed him. [NYT; Buzzfeed (for dossier)].
Trump’s Transition and Presidency: After Trump won the election, he picked nominees with ties to Putin and Russian oligarchs, such as Rex Tillerson and Wilbur Ross. [CBS; MotherJones]. He also picked Flynn for National Security Advisor, who during the transitions, infamously discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador over five phone calls on the day they were announced by Obama. [Reuters]. Trump shares Flynn’s concern with sanctions, and has persistently advocated removing them and working with Putin. [see e.g. Reuters, Politico]. However, Trump has been preemptively thwarted by Congress. [USAToday (many Republicans have voiced support for sanctions)].
US Intel Agencies and Allies: Officials in US intelligence agencies strongly suspect collusion between Trump and Russia, [Haaretz; WSJ], as do our Western European and Baltic allies, [Newsweek]. They have investigated Trump’s associates and uncovered many suspicious contacts with Russian officials. [Newsweek; NYT; CNN].

(CNN)It's been nearly a week since a self-described fan of Donald Trump walked into a mosque in Quebec City and opened fire, killing six worshipers. The President has, at the time of writing, yet to publicly acknowledge the massacre, let alone offer any public words of condolence.
Thus far, the only mention of the tragedy by the White House has been by Trump's Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, who, in a mind-boggling display of disinformation, called it "a terrible reminder of why we must remain vigilant and why the President is taking steps to be proactive instead of reactive when it comes to our nation's safety and security." Spicer's statement left the press corps baffled. He seemed to be suggesting that a far-right, ultra-nationalist, white supremacist, radicalized by social media into murdering Muslims, somehow proved Trump's position on the need to focus on the threat of Islamic terrorism. As Philip Bump of the Washington Post put it: "The clear implication was that the incident in Quebec proved that his actions on terrorism and immigration were necessary, though it's not clear how that is the case."

Well, we now have some sense as to why the White House has not only been silent about the Quebec City massacre, but has used it to advance what the New York Times calls a "deeply suspicious view of Islam" indicative of a troubling "strain of anti-Islamic theorizing."
An exclusive report by Reuters suggests the White House is planning to "revamp and rename a US government program designed to counter all violent ideologies so that it focuses solely on Islamist extremism." According to Reuters, the program, "Countering Violent Extremism" will be renamed "Countering Islamic Extremism" or "Countering Radical Islamic Extremism," and will reportedly "no longer target groups such as white supremacists" who have been responsible for the vast majority of terrorist attacks on American soil in the last 15 years. In Trump's world, it seems, the only extremism that matters is Islamic extremism.

These facts explain why, according to the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security, "law enforcement agencies in the United States consider anti-government violent extremists, not radicalized Muslims, to be the most severe threat of political violence that they face." Indeed, in a survey the New York Times conducted in 2015, "74% of law enforcement agencies reported anti-government extremism as one of the top three terrorist threats in their jurisdiction." So, considering the facts, why might the White House choose to stop targeting what is almost unanimously considered to be the gravest domestic terrorist threat to Americans and to focus instead solely on Islamic terrorism? The answer is simple: Trump is playing to an influential part of his constituency. After all, these people form the radical core of his political support. They are the people who helped put him in the White House.

Petition calls for Edexcel to change syllabus after student points out that it features 63 male composers and no female ones

clara schumann

fanny hensel mendelssohn

maria szymanowska

alexandra du bois

A student has launched an online campaign to ensure that women are represented on Edexcel’s A-level music syllabus, which currently features 63 male composers and no female ones. Seventeen-year-old Jessy McCabe noticed the lack of female representation on the exam board’s music syllabus after participating in a programme on gender inequality.
. . . . .

In response to an email from McCabe, the head of music wrote: “Given that female composers were not prominent in the western classical tradition (or others for that matter), there would be very few female composers that could be included.”

McCabe wrote on a change.org petition page that such assertions were simply untrue. “Only three days earlier (8 March 2015), BBC Radio 3 managed to do a whole day of programming of female composers to honour International Women’s Day,” she wrote. “Surely, if BBC Radio 3 can play music composed by women for a whole day, Edexcel could select at least one to be part of the syllabus alongside the likes of Holborne, Haydn and Howlin’ Wolf?”

She added: “This has got to change. How can we expect girls to aspire to be composers and musicians if they don’t have the opportunity to learn of any role models? How can we accept that the UK’s largest awarding body doesn’t adequately acknowledge the work of female musicians? Why are we limiting diversity in a subject which thrives on astounding breadth?”
Women composers deserve much better

Emmy Noether was one of the most brilliant and important mathematicians of the 20th century. She altered the course of modern physics. Einstein called her a genius. Yet today, almost nobody knows who she is. In 1915, Noether uncovered one of science's most extraordinary ideas, proving that every symmetry found in nature has a corresponding law of conservation. So, for example, the fact that physical laws work the same today as they did yesterday turns out to be related to the notion that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Noether's theorem is a deep insight that underpins much of modern-day physics and things like the search for the Higgs boson.

"Despite her brilliance, universities didn't want to hire a woman"

Even so, as one of the very few female mathematicians working in Germany in her day, Noether faced rampant sexism. As a young woman, she wasn't allowed to formally attend university. Even after she proved herself a first-rate mathematician, male faculties were reluctant to hire her. If that wasn't enough, in 1933, the Nazis ousted her for being Jewish. Even today, she remains all too obscure.

That should change. So it’s welcome news that Google is honoring Noether today with a Google Doodle on her 133rd birthday. To celebrate, here's an introduction to the life and work of a woman Albert Einstein once called "the most significant creative mathematical genius thus far produced."
Noether was brilliant — yet universities wouldn't hire her

Her work got noticed, and in 1915, the renowned mathematician David Hilbert lobbied for the University of Göttingen to hire her. But other male faculty members blocked the move, with one arguing: "What will our soldiers think when they return to the university and find that they are required to learn at the feet of a woman?" So Hilbert had to take Noether on as a guest lecturer for four years. She wasn't paid, and her lectures were often billed under Hilbert's name. She didn't get a full-time position until 1919.

That didn't stop Noether from doing trailblazing work in a number of areas, especially abstract algebra. Rather than focusing on real numbers and polynomials — the algebraic equations we learn in high school — Noether was interested in abstract structures, like rings or groups, that obey certain rules. Abstract algebra was one of the big mathematical innovations of the 20th century, and Noether was hugely influential in shaping it.
. . . . .

The hunt for the Higgs boson can be traced back to Noether's insight on symmetries. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images)

To put it very simply, what Noether's theorems show is that anytime there’s a continuous symmetry in a physical system, there’s a related law of conservation.**

Here's an example: Let's say we conduct a scientific experiment today. If we then conduct the exact same experiment tomorrow, we'd expect the laws of physics to behave in exactly the same way. This is "time symmetry." Noether showed that if a system has time symmetry, then energy can't be created or destroyed in that system — we get the law of conservation of energy.

"Noether had linked together concepts as different as energy and time"

Likewise, if we do an experiment, and then do the exact same experiment again 20 miles to the east, that shouldn't make any difference — the laws of physics should work the exact same way in both places. This is known as "translation symmetry." Noether showed that translation symmetry leads to the law of conservation of momentum.

Noether worked at the Mathematical Institute of Erlangen, without pay or title, from 1908 to 1915. It was during this time that she collaborated with the algebraist Ernst Otto Fischer and started work on the more general, theoretical algebra for which she would later be recognized. She also worked with the prominent mathematicians Hermann Minkowski, Felix Klein, and David Hilbert, whom she had met at Göttingen. In 1915 she joined the Mathematical Institute in Göttingen and started working with Klein and Hilbert on Einstein's general relativity theory. In 1918 she proved two theorems that were basic for both general relativity and elementary particle physics. One is still known as "Noether's Theorem."

But she still could not join the faculty at Göttingen University because of her gender. Noether was only allowed to lecture under Hilbert's name, as his assistant. Hilbert and Albert Einstein interceded for her, and in 1919 she obtained her permission to lecture, although still without a salary. In 1922 she became an "associate professor without tenure" and began to receive a small salary. Her status did not change while she remained at Göttingen, owing not only to prejudices against women, but also because she was a Jew, a Social Democrat, and a pacifist.*

During the 1920s Noether did foundational work on abstract algebra, working in group theory, ring theory, group representations, and number theory. Her mathematics would be very useful for physicists and crystallographers, but it was controversial then. There was debate whether mathematics should be conceptual and abstract (intuitionist) or more physically based and applied (constructionist). Noether's conceptual approach to algebra led to a body of principles unifying algebra, geometry, linear algebra, topology, and logic.

In 1928-29 she was a visiting professor at the University of Moscow. In 1930, she taught at Frankfurt. The International Mathematical Congress in Zurich asked her to give a plenary lecture in 1932, and in the same year she was awarded the prestigious Ackermann-Teubner Memorial Prize in mathematics.

The Mighty Mathematician You’ve Never Heard Of
.. . .
In 1915 Einstein published his general theory of relativity. The Göttingen math department fell “head over ear” with it, in the words of one observer, and Noether began applying her invariance work to some of the complexities of the theory. That exercise eventually inspired her to formulate what is now called Noether’s theorem, an expression of the deep tie between the underlying geometry of the universe and the behavior of the mass and energy that call the universe home.

What the revolutionary theorem says, in cartoon essence, is the following: Wherever you find some sort of symmetry in nature, some predictability or homogeneity of parts, you’ll find lurking in the background a corresponding conservation — of momentum, electric charge, energy or the like. If a bicycle wheel is radially symmetric, if you can spin it on its axis and it still looks the same in all directions, well, then, that symmetric translation must yield a corresponding conservation. By applying the principles and calculations embodied in Noether’s theorem, you’ll see that it is angular momentum, the Newtonian impulse that keeps bicyclists upright and on the move.

Some of the relationships to pop out of the theorem are startling, the most profound one linking time and energy. Noether’s theorem shows that a symmetry of time — like the fact that whether you throw a ball in the air tomorrow or make the same toss next week will have no effect on the ball’s trajectory — is directly related to the conservation of energy, our old homily that energy can be neither created nor destroyed but merely changes form.

The connections that Noether forged are “critical” to modern physics, said Lisa Randall, a professor of theoretical particle physics and cosmology at Harvard. “Energy, momentum and other quantities we take for granted gain meaning and even greater value when we understand how these quantities follow from symmetry in time and space.”